


the road to ruin

by jadzeanna



Series: ice and smoke [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Experimental Style, F/F, change of heart, revan is a he/him lesbian, this is what happens when you take one line in a fall out boy song WAY too literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23082961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadzeanna/pseuds/jadzeanna
Summary: Bastila Shan's fall to the dark side began in an ancient space station over the ruins of a once-proud world, when she drew her lightsaber, red as blood, to kill the only woman she ever loved.No, it started even before that.[Or: six times Revan corrupted Bastila, and one time he saved her]
Relationships: Revan/Bastila Shan
Series: ice and smoke [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696552
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	the road to ruin

_this is the road to ruin, and we’re starting at the end  
_(fall out boy – alone together)

Bastila Shan's fall to the dark side started in the torture chambers of the flagship of the Sith fleet.

It had been a week since she was captured. Malak had tortured her nearly the entire time, personally, insisting it would “whet her appetite”. She was tired and hungry, had electric burns on most of her body, wore the same piss-stained clothing she was captured in. She was ready to check out by the time he stopped. 

Malak was only interested in her as a stepping stone, a tool to use to get to Revan. In that respect he was no different than the Jedi Council. Well, too bad. Bastila was done being a pawn. She wanted power, liberation, and this time it would be hers alone. 

Revan wanted it for her too, so she believed wholeheartedly. Why else would he constantly oppose her, constantly try to talk her out of following the Jedi code? He had fought her weakness, her guarded propriety, so she would let it go and become a truer version of herself. Someone worthy of all the responsibility he had placed in her. Someone worthy to be his queen. 

She gladly opened herself to the way of the Sith. She followed in the footsteps of the woman she loved as thoroughly as she knew how, and felt as if a weight was lifted. She no longer had to resist, could let herself want wholeheartedly. Could live up to all that Revan was, if she was to serve at his side. 

No, it started even before that.

* * *

It started in a poorly lit hallway on the Leviathan.

Malak told Revan the truth of the lie the Jedi had concocted, that he was never who he thought he was. The betrayal she saw in his eyes, the anger she felt through their bond, would haunt her forever. If he’d never trusted anyone else in his new life, he had trusted her.

She had trusted him, too, perhaps not with her soul but with her life, and he had never let her down. After everything they’d been through together, every time he turned her own logic against her, every time he’d saved her from her own despair… she knew where her priorities lay.

The Jedi Order had set a trap for him, yes, but they didn’t realize he had also set a trap for her, and his was the stronger will. He meant everything to her now. She had hurt him, nearly against her own will, and she would see the Jedi burn to make up for it.

No, it started even before that.

* * *

It started in the cargo bay of the Ebon Hawk, tucked away between meandering gizka.

He had prodded her again and again about Korriban, how her reaction to the Sith tombs was actually envy at their freedom, their power. How he could see the glint in her eyes when he held Ajunta Pall’s blade, how he knew she dreamed of _becoming_ part of something rather than just destroying herself like a good Jedi. How maybe, on second thought, she was so stuffy that she didn’t actually know what it meant to want something for herself at all.

She thought she was going to scream, or to storm out, council-be-damned, or to lift her chin and look down her nose at the taller woman. She wasn’t sure if it was the force guiding her, or her own instincts – is there a difference? – but the next thing she knew she was shoving him back against the wall, pressing her lips against his. She felt like falling, and she never wanted to stop.

Soon she had unfastened his shirt and he pulled off her top. His hand grazed against her waist, tracing the long saber scar with a tenderness that made her skin suddenly feel too constrictive. He didn’t know what that scar meant. It was his mark on her body, hand in hand with her mark on his mind. They’d damaged each other. They needed each other. They were part of each other forever, now.

She pressed their bodies together then, breasts against breasts, hips angling to wedge a leg between thighs, pushing him into the wall with her entire weight, using her hands to pull him closer to her. Her emotions were wild and frantic, and he was at the epicenter of it all. Everything else didn't, couldn't matter. There was only falling, and the destiny they shared.

No, it started even before that.

* * *

It started in the guest chambers of the Jedi enclave on Dantooine.

She felt him cry out for her in the middle of the night, awoken by a memory he should no longer have. Her eyes flew open to a stabbing in her heart and she knew that the council was wrong to bring him here. This place was too familiar; Dantooine was bringing back painful memories.

When they were children, the council had tried to draw a boundary between him and Malak, and it had failed. They would try to draw a boundary between him and Bastila as well, but they were too close already. No intervention could get between them now.

The rules of Jedi solitude allowed her no contact with him at this stage in his training. Instead, she felt the pain of a suffering child transmute into her own longing to meet her father again and hear him be proud of her. With the pain, she felt a piece of her tieto the Order snap, and found she didn’t miss it at all. 

No, it started even before that.

* * *

It started in the lobby of the annual swoop race in the filthy lower city of Taris.

When she woke up in a cage with a shock collar around her neck, she’d bided her time planning an escape. She fell into a meditative trance, feigned submission to the demands of her captors, withstood the torture, waited for the moment when they would slip up and give her an exit route. She would play their own fears against them and they would realize how sorely they underestimated her.

A mysterious newcomer whose name she never heard won her as a prize, for the Black Vulkars no less, and she suppressed a shudder of dread. She strongly suspected her new “master” would want her as a pet. If the rumors were true, the man had sought entry to the race solely to get to her.

When she finally saw his face, she felt a lurch in her stomach. That was no man, no mere gang member. Her mission had no way to account for anything that happened on Taris, but at least she finally found Revan. She would find a way to ensure the delicate work she’d done on his mind wasn’t for nothing.

He tried to help fight off her captors, but just as often he interrupted her choreographed maneuvers. He was clumsy in a way she’d never imagined Revan could be, but he had forgotten the force. She took two unnecessary blaster hits, and had to fight twice as hard to protect both of them. He was her real target, and she wouldn’t forgive herself if she let him die to some _thugs_.

And then – _then_ – he had the gall to say he'd saved her. It was the first time she'd seen how deep his ego truly ran. But he flashed her a smile, that smile that made her weak in the knees even then, and she already knew she was done for.

No, it started even before that.

* * *

It started on the Dark Lord's transport vessel, in the middle of a battle he’d thought he already won.

She'd fought him, personally, yellow hissing against red. And she reached out her mind – it was her specialty, after all – and sought out his memories to turn against him. She found an unhealed wound and reached into it, trying to pry apart the fibers and _pull_. She hadn’t understood the master of manipulation she was dueling with. She wouldn’t realize the extent of her mistake until months later.

He got under her defenses. A too-slow parry let his blade scratch fire along the length of her waist. She stepped back in mindless pain until she could resume her guard, but by then he'd pushed her out of his mind.

She found her way back in, tracing the same wound, and he trapped her in it. It was shaped an awful lot like her already. Rather than fighting it, she left a piece of herself with him, and that gave her enough of an edge to win the battle.

Later, when the fight was over, when they tore apart the fabric of his memory, she reclaimed the piece she lost, and thought that was the end of it. But he was a part of her now, and she a part of him.

In retrospect, that was where her fall began.

* * *

It ended on the rooftop of a haunted temple on a dying world.

The wind whipped around them, sharp despite its warmth. The rain that covered her arrival had dissipated, leaving only a vague mistiness in the air. She was stronger than she’d ever been, and channeled that strength with the laser focus of a lifetime’s worth of repressed wanting. She was ready, now, for anything he could throw at her. The world would give her her due. 

The Revan she knew wanted her for who she could become, not who she had been. He’d guided her, opened her eyes. He’d torn through the web of repression and lies she’d shielded herself in, forced her to confront her own vulnerability. He’d made her stronger.

"I don't care about ruling the galaxy", said the most ruthless and ambitious person she'd ever met. "I just want you to return to the light."

And she – she wanted _him_ , wanted to be with him desperately. She had been so certain that she knew what he wanted from her. She’d given up everything for it. And he rejected her.

The crazy thing is, he seemed to mean it. When he met her again, he bade her join him as herself, not the monstrosity she had been twisted into. When he had defeated Malak and was ready to reclaim his throne, he instead destroyed the Star Forge and denounced the Sith. When they were safe and alone, when the gorgeous tropical planet had faded back into antiquity, he fell into Bastila’s arms and begged her forgiveness for what he'd put her through.

She would recover, and he would prove himself in time. But that was where it began.


End file.
